Apple Business Essentials vs. Jamf School

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Apple Business Essentials
Score 8.3 out of 10
Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
Apple Business Essentials is a subscription service that brings together device management, 24/7 support, and cloud storage. It enables small business to manage every iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple TVs throughout the business.
$8.25
per device, per month
Jamf School
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
Jamf School is a purpose-built mobile device management solution (MDM) for schools that gives users the ability to deploy and manage Apple devices. Jamf School management system also pairs with three apps, Jamf School Teacher, Jamf School Parent and Jamf School Student.N/A
Pricing
Apple Business EssentialsJamf School
Editions & Modules
Fleetsmith Managed
$8.25
per device, per month
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Apple Business EssentialsJamf School
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsFree unlimited trial for up to 10 devices Device Intelligence free for unlimited devices iOS/tvOS devices free during beta period
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Apple Business EssentialsJamf School
Best Alternatives
Apple Business EssentialsJamf School
Small Businesses
NinjaOne
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Cisco Meraki SM
Cisco Meraki SM
Score 9.8 out of 10
Cisco Meraki SM
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Score 9.8 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Meraki SM
Cisco Meraki SM
Score 9.8 out of 10
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Score 9.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Apple Business EssentialsJamf School
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.5
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Apple Business EssentialsJamf School
Likelihood to Recommend
Fleetsmith is well suited for companies with a lot of Macs, Mac minis, Apple tvs, etc., that are all over the place (different offices, states, countries, floors, remote employees, etc). It makes the management of these central where it would be almost impossible otherwise.
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Jamf is user-friendly and easy to set up. It allows Ipads to be managed in easy-to-understand groupings. It also allows teachers to take ownership of choosing and distributing apps. The safety features for students allow restricting of websites, apps, and even clearing some of the "clutter" of built-in IOS apps that you don't want on students screens such as news and measuring apps. I really enjoy using this product.
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Pros
  • Fleetsmith does a great job of being unobtrusive on managed devices. After initial deployment, one might never know it’s there except when it prompts to enforce a software update.
  • Fleetsmith has sensible defaults and relatively few decisions for the administrator to make; for most applications and configurations, it’s sufficient to enforce a minimum version. For more complex use cases, I suggest falling back on Fleetsmith’s ability to install tools such as Puppet and run arbitrary shell commands.
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  • Concise management
  • Data tracking
  • Instructional tool
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Cons
  • We were told that this was in the works and it would be implemented at the beginning of the year 2019. That has still not happened and whenever we ask about this functionality we cannot get a good answer.
  • Management of devices that are already in the field—we were told that in order to use Fleetsmith as we would like (pushing apps to devices) we would have to get each device and set them up from a Mac.
  • Integration with Windows.
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  • Steep learning curve
  • Cannot track MacBook locations
  • Unassigning and Reassigning devices when changing SNs from repairs is complicated
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Usability
It's very simple to use. Sometimes a little too simple, so it can be tempting to fiddle around or tweaks settings that might have annoying downstream impacts. But it's easy to rollback or disable changes anyway. My only wish is that each option set should have its own deeper explanation about the impact of the options on real-world users or security concerns.
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For the most part, Jamf School does everything it is programmed to do. However, there are a few instances where we have run into snags. This is to be expected with any software though and working customer support has always been helpful. Customer support does their best to help with each scenario we've had issues with.
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Support Rating
Fantastic support. I have had a few queries on how to go about doing things in the best way and the support at Fleetsmith was always very quick to reply and with excellent advice and detail to solve the problem and lead is into our best use of their product.
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
I include Samsung Knox as a competitor in this field because you can have a similar setup with any Samsung devices purchased through a reseller as well. We have gone down this route for a few devices that have needed to be Android and the difference between the two platforms is night-and-day. Apple Business Essentials Manager is much easier to use and manage.
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Jamf School works much better for our needs than the other programs listed. We originally used Jamf Pro, but being in a school setting it did not provide all the support we needed. Thankfully, Jamf recognized this need and created Jamf School. We have since been using it and it has helped our productivity and management tremendously.
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Return on Investment
  • Lesser cost for managing device, instead of getting more manpower to do it manually.
  • Lesser security threats (which will cause financial damage) as all devices are configured according the the company security policies, such as firewalls, media management, app security updates.
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  • Much simpler device management
  • Cost Saver
  • More productivity because of less down time
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ScreenShots